The fresh, sophisticated, and classic masterpiece, Citizen Kane (1941), is probably the world's most famous and highly-rated film, with its many remarkable scenes and performances, cinematic and narrative techniques and experimental innovations (in photography, editing, and sound). Its director, star, and producer were all the same genius individual - Orson Welles (in his film debut at age 25!), who collaborated with Herman J. Mankiewicz on the script (and also with an uncredited John Houseman), and with Gregg …showed first 75 words of 258 total…

…showed last 75 words of 258 total…and efforts at suppression in early 1941) because it appeared to fictionalize and caricaturize certain events and individuals in the life of William Randolph Hearst, a powerful newspaper magnate and publisher, and the film drew remarkable, unflattering, and uncomplimentary parallels (especially in regards to the Susan Alexander Kane character). The notorious battle was detailed in Thomas Lennon's and Michael Epstein's Oscar-nominated documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996), and it was retold in HBO's cable-TV film RKO 281 (1999):